Application of the NEOH Framework for Self-Evaluation of One Health Elements of a Case-Study on Obesity in European Dogs and Dog-Owners

Muñoz-Prieto, Alberto; Nielsen, Liza Rosenbaum; Martı́nez-Subiela, Silvia; Mazeikiene, Jovita; López‐Jornet, Pía; Savić, Sara; Tvarijonaviciute, Asta

doi:10.3389/fvets.2018.00163

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…These findings support the call for specific education in OH core competencies, and emphasise that systems thinking and associated practises are crucial skills to develop in the OH community (5,22). This necessity is well-illustrated by Prieto et al (23), who reported that initiative N did not engage with stakeholders or in any intersectoral collaborative processes. On the contrary, Buttigieg et al (24) describe the evolutionary process through one century of trial and error to eradicate brucellosis in Malta, culminating in a systemic and inclusive approach.…”

Section: Opportunities To Improve Knowledge Integration In One Healthsupporting

confidence: 70%

System Thinking and Citizen Participation Is Still Missing in One Health Initiatives – Lessons From Fifteen Evaluations

Berezowski

Dürr

Falzon

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

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Tackling complex public health challenges requires integrated approaches to health, such as One Health (OH). A key element of these approaches is the integration of knowledge across sectors, disciplines and stakeholders. It is not yet clear which elements of knowledge integration need endorsement to achieve best outcomes. This paper assesses 15 OH initiatives in 16 African, Asian and European countries to identify opportunities to improve knowledge integration and to investigate geographic influences on knowledge integration capacities. Two related evaluation tools, both relying on semi-quantitative questionnaires, were applied to two sets of case studies. In one tool, the questions relate to operations and infrastructure, while the other assigns questions to the three phases of “design,” “implementation,” and “evaluation” of the project life cycle. In both, the question scores are aggregated using medians. For analysis, extreme values were identified to highlight strengths and weaknesses. Seven initiatives were assessed by a single evaluator external to the initiative, and the other eight initiatives were jointly assessed by several internal and external evaluators. The knowledge integration capacity was greatest during the project implementation stage, and lowest during the evaluation stage. The main weaknesses pointing towards concrete potential for improvement were identified to be a lack of consideration of systemic characteristics, missing engagement of external stakeholders and poor bridging of knowledge, amplified by the absence of opportunities to learn and evolve in a collective process. Most users were unfamiliar with the systems approach to evaluation and found the use of the tools challenging, but they appreciated the new perspective and saw benefits in the ensuing reflections. We conclude that systems thinking and associated practises for OH require not only specific education in OH core competencies, but also methodological and institutional measures to endorse broad participation. To facilitate meta-analyses and generic improvement of integrated approaches to health we suggest including knowledge integration processes as elements to report according to the COHERE guidelines.

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Section: Opportunities To Improve Knowledge Integration In One Healthsupporting

confidence: 70%

System Thinking and Citizen Participation Is Still Missing in One Health Initiatives – Lessons From Fifteen Evaluations

Berezowski

Dürr

Falzon

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

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“…The NEOH guidelines represent an original evaluation framework for the assessment of OH operations within an initiative and, so far, those guidelines have been used to assess the degree of OH-ness of specific health projects. Some of these projects are built up according to an OH perspective ( 17 ), some others are built up with holistic awareness of the system, even before the OH gained such recognition ( 26 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Health Evaluation: A Case Study at the University of Bologna

Aragrande

Canali

Roccaro

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

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The level of One Health (OH), or “One Health-ness,” of health interventions has been defined as the capacity to operate according to six dimensions concerning OH operations and OH infrastructures, respectively (thinking, planning, and working; and information sharing, reciprocal learning, and systemic organization). Although health initiatives and research increasingly claim their orientation toward OH, such a capacity is rarely assessed. The objective of this study is to evaluate the One Health-ness of the academic team of the University of Bologna (UNIBO Team) working in the “ELEPHANT” project (Empowering universities' Learning and rEsearch caPacities in the one Health Approach for the maNagement of animals at the wildlife, livestock and human interface in SouTh Africa). This project involves universities, six from South Africa and two from Europe, and aims at embedding OH in research and learning to enable the control of diseases at the human, animal, and environmental interface, and to emphasize the interests of local African communities with wildlife conservation. The methodology adopts the NEOH method, developed in 2018 by the EU-COST Action, “Network for the Evaluation of One Health.” The approach is based on questionnaires delivered to participants, which focus on the six OH dimensions, and then translate answers into quantitative metrics through the OH Index (OHI) and the OH Ratio (OHR). The following two evaluation levels are foreseen: the whole project and the single partner institutions. The evaluations are carried on in parallel, with preliminary, mid-term, and final assessments, to monitor the efficacy of the project actions. The preliminary evaluation of the UNIBO Team resulted in the OHI of 0.23 and the OHR of 1.69 which indicate a low degree of OH-ness and an imbalance between OH operation and OH infrastructure. The UNIBO case study will be the baseline for the evaluation of the other partner institutions involved in the ELEPHANT project. This type of evaluation can support the implementation of OH practices inside a project and underpin the strategies that allow to achieving more effective results. Any improvement in the OH-ness of each single academic team can be also considered as a result of the ELEPHANT project, thus showing its multiplier effect in the context.

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“…Whether this has structurally changed during the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be seen. Another important One Health challenge is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, which appear to be one of the most demanding practices in the academic context (Léger et al, 2018;Muñoz-Prieto et al, 2018). There seems to be a disconnect between the ambition to work across disciplines and the cultural practice in science of evaluating achievements based on scientific, preferably high-impact, publications.…”

Section: Challenges In One Health Governancementioning

confidence: 99%